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submitted 2 days ago by patatas@sh.itjust.works to c/canada@lemmy.ca

Curious also if this is Canada-wide or just in Ontario:

Recently have had two occasions where Shoppers was pushing me to have the pharmacist prescribe a renewal of something, rather than troubleshoot an error with a renewal request through 1) my family doc and 2) a specialist.

In both cases they wanted to charge me $15.

Case #1 I just said no thanks and called my family doctor, thankfully it was sorted out quickly.

Case #2, Shoppers' automated system waited until Saturday at 5pm(!) to notify me that the renewal (which I'd requested on Tuesday at 11am) had not gone through. When I called, they tried to charge me the $15 - but I successfully pressured them to give me a few days of the medication while I sorted out the issue (which is what they used to offer).

I can't help but wonder if this is the 'enshittification' of pharmacy services, where they tell you they'll take care of the automated renewal, but then - oops! - they mess it up and try to squeeze $15 out of a patient who just needs their medicine, and doesn't have time to make a bunch of calls, or trek over to the walk-in clinic or whatever.

Anyone else having similar issues? If so, it might be worth collecting people's stories and raising a fuss.

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[-] BCsven@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 days ago

Yep. We had an ongoing prescription for my wife something simple ( I forget what) I went to pick it up and the pharmacy tech was like oh we will pull you aside for a consult. I'm like, uh its not for me its my wife's and she's had it for a year I think she knows how to take it.

Another time for one of my kids they charged my insurance company for a medicine they hadn't handed out yet. They assumed we would get it monthly even though my kid had moved. So just billed the insurance anyway. I lodged a complaint with the insurers that they were commiting fraud.

Then you had shoppers and manulife trying to go kahootz and force you to use only shoppers.

this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
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